The Red River

Act 1 Chapter Ten: Reborn

"By God? You don't even believe in God son! What happened to you? Where is the Stephen I knew before Logan had showed up? You changed long before we were captured down there! Something has been telling me to put a bullet in your head since! Something had been warning me to watch out for you! Not to trust you!" Henry Argued back. He stood defenseless. His body did not let him hold his ground, nor did it let him draw his gun. He was depleted of stamina. Now was my chance.

"The whispers... The voices, you hear them... you-you just confirmed that you hear them!! But these voices tell you not to trust me? That Is funny. I hear voices every second, and they are telling me to kill you as well. They are telling me right now how to do so. They are saying that when I charge at you, you will reach for your gun; however, me being much faster than you, I will stop you. Then I will grab your head... and bash it into that tree behind you, over and over and over again. I will bash it until your brains are gushing out, dripping down my hands." I said aloud. Henry's heavy breathing slowed down; however, he let off a scent of his fear. He was frozen in fear. Broken out in my control, he had nowhere else to run. If I wanted to, I could have ended his life right then and there. I moved my foot a little to startle him. He quickly reached down for his gun, doing exactly as I had said he would do; however, my speed and strength outshined his gun. I quickly grabbed him by the head and threw him against the tree he stood in front of, strong enough to knock him unconscious, not to kill him. All I needed was the gun, I did not need to kill anyone at the moment; however, I must not have pushed him hard enough. He was still conscious, the back of his head dripped with blood. He tried to get to his feet but it was futile, he was too weak.

"You see, that's the problem with you people. You all think the same. How is it that I knew what you were going to do before you did? I even told you step by step, and yet you refused to change your plan, you refused to do anything different. Why is that? Did you act suddenly because of fear, or did you plan for this to happen? Perhaps you intended for me to knock you out because you knew I would not kill you. Interesting." The words that fell from my mouth had never fell from them before. I was unsure what was happening to me, happening to my mind; however, I liked it. I enjoyed being in control, and I was not going to let anything change that. Whatever ate away at my mental state could continue. Whatever this was, took away all fear, took away all doubts. This sensation gave me power, it gave me control. It guided me in the direction I needed to go, it showed me how to kill Logan.

"Yo-You are just like him... you're both monsters, animals, you love power and love to be in control. Here... take the damn gun. Do what you were always going to do in this first place." Henry stated, as he breathed heavily in between sentences. He reached for his gun and tossed it to me; however, I just stared at him. My eyes were locked in on Henry's face as I saw a defenseless, broken man giving up. I reached for the gun and turned my back on Henry, before walking away.

"You were right. Stephen! You were right. We should not have come here to kill Logan. We should have come to save Nathan. Now look at us, look at what he did. We're both going crazy out here! You think you're the only one who went through it? I was there too." Henry shouted softy. The last bit of strength he had was used to talk to me, not to attack or attempt to escape. I turned back around, facing Henry. I saw him as he struggled to stand on his feet. His head was still bleeding from before; however, he did not let that stop him from rising. He was a strong man after all.

"I saw things, heard things, things that weren't there. I had this dream, that I was there... I was there before the boy at the lake was killed. I saw it happen, just as you described it, I saw him, I felt him drowning in that lake, except... it wasn't Leroy that was doing it, it was me. Stephen, I was stuck reliving this over and over again, until I woke up in that room with the bodies, they all had bullet holes in their heads, but I was the only one with a gun, and I don't have any more bullets left... I- I killed those people... I don't remember when or how, but I killed those people." Henry explained. He voiced once again seemed choked up as if he were holding back tears.